gaza city
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Displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip woke up Friday morning to inches of water flooding into their tents. It rained heavily all night, leaving their shelters and belongings drenched with no way to dry them.
Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told reporters that Gazan officials had received “hundreds of petitions for help” “but the resources do not exist.”
“The water level throughout the shelter has risen to more than 10 centimeters (3.94 inches). Mattresses are soaked, blankets are soaked, and we have no options left, because all options have been destroyed by Israel,” he said.
Displaced Palestinians in Gaza City told CNN that the tents residents were staying in were in tatters, with some collapsing under the weight of the rain.
“We and our small children were flooded by the rain,” Raed al-Arayyan said. “Our tent was flooded. We don’t have a roof to protect us from the rain.”
Storms are common in Gaza this time of year, but with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing permanent shelters, even normal amounts of rainfall could flood residents and worsen an already dire situation.
The rain continued into the morning, and the men and women desperately tried to clear the rainwater that continued to flow into their tents.
“I’ve been awake since 2:30 a.m. because of the rain. My mattress and blankets are all wet,” Abdulbasset Abulhadi told CNN.
One woman told CNN she was leading a family through a drenched tent where they were evacuating 20 children, including a newborn. She began crying out in pain as she explained her situation.
“Where should I go?” she asked several times. “My murdered son built a tent for us. What should I do now?”
Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were flooded, said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General. He told reporters that U.N. partners working to set up shelters say Gaza lacks the necessary equipment for adequate flood protection, including tools to drain water from tents and remove solid waste and debris.
“We are concerned that thousands of displaced families have been left fully exposed to severe weather elements,” the spokesperson said.
Mai Elrawada, Gaza communications officer for Palestinian Medical Assistance (MAP), called Friday “one of the toughest days in Gaza since the ceasefire.”
“Early this morning, heavy rains flooded the tents of displaced families, along with their few belongings. Most of these families are surviving in completely dilapidated tents, having traveled together through two years of constant Israeli attacks and forced evacuations. These tents, frayed in the sun, are now disintegrating with the first signs of winter,” Errawada said in a statement.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 1.4 million people in the Gaza Strip are in need of emergency supplies and more than 320,000 homes have been damaged by Israeli attacks.
Despite the urgent need, Israeli authorities have allowed only a fraction of the shelter aid to enter Gaza. One evacuee said he had not received tarpaulins throughout the war.
“Most of my bedding was soaked in water. I drowned in just five minutes of rain,” Abu Mohammad Abeeb told CNN.
A spokesman for the UN secretary-general said “millions” of urgently needed evacuation supplies were still stuck in Jordan, Egypt and Israel, awaiting permission to enter the enclaves.
CNN has asked Israeli authorities for comment on the amount of aid they are allowing to flow into Gaza and accusations by aid groups that they continue to block humanitarian aid.
